


The Janus Brothers

by euromagpie



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010), Ocean's (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Gen, Hurt Danny "Danno" Williams, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapped Danny "Danno" Williams, Team as Family, They love each other, appearance of the malloy brothers at the end, hurt kono kalakaua, kono has a no good very bad day, lots of swearing, starring chin as the overprotective brother, steve its like youre becoming a human being, the malloys are mostly only mentioned, turk malloy - Freeform, uh kind of explicit torture, virgil malloy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 04:03:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9474899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euromagpie/pseuds/euromagpie
Summary: “Steve McGarrett.” He answered, just before he registered the familiar deadly staccato of rapid fire bullets in the background. Before he could say anything else, Kono’s voice came through the phone, breathless and tight.“Steve, we nee-“ Her voice was cut off with a small grunt and was instead replaced with a loud clattering noise. The bullets continued for a moment before a deathly silence fell. On his neck, Steve’s hair stood to attention.When Kono interrupts an abduction attempts, a case six years buried draws the team into a hunt for their missing team-member.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Knowledge of the Ocean's movies isn't necessary (although I recommend you watch them anyway they're so Funny) just know that in it Scott Caan plays a criminal with a fraternal twin brother.

The sun had been up for several hours by the time Danny was awoken by the creak of his bedroom door – it was one of his rare days off without Grace or Charlie, and so he had had no intention of getting out of bed for a good long while; last night's case had wrapped up in the wee hours of the morning, so when he'd come home, Danny had simply collapsed in bed, still wearing his rumpled clothes from the work day. Steve seemed to have taken pity on him and Kono, and given them both the following day off. Danny had been looking forward to his quiet lie-in, followed by a cholesterol-laden breakfast, as breakfast was supposed to be.

Yet, as a cop, his instincts worked overtime without the benefit of pay and so, despite the occasional insight to Steve that Danny’s apartment was definitely haunted, he was well aware that nobody, corporeal or otherwise, had yet any business of creeping into his bedroom at ass o’clock in the morning.

His hand was halfway to the can of pepper spray under his pillow (no way was he keeping a loaded gun in his apartment where curious fingers could find it) when he was greeted by the sound of a gun safety being unlocked, and the cold press of metal against his neck.

“What the f-“

“Shut up!”  A masculine voice grunted, shoving the barrel of the gun harder into the back of his neck. Danny’s reminded of the scene from _Bandits_ , and wonders if he should take the chance to see if the guy’s bluffing.

 _Yeah Danny, the psycho definitely has a metal highlighter pressed to the back of your neck, after going through all the trouble of breaking into your house. You’re not feeling **that** lucky, punk_.

His whole body tense, Danny was fighting the urge to kick out like a mule and shoulder the intruder off; McGarrett would probably already have his attacker in a headlock, but Danny had given up comparing himself to Steve a long time ago. His best chance of getting out of this without having his brains blown out was to stay still and let the stranger take what he wanted. Not that he kept anything worthwhile in his apartment in the first place – he didn’t own many valuables, and he left his laptop and case-files at the office every day.

“Take what you wa-“ Danny grunted as the gun barrel clipped him on his temple.

“Didn’t I tell you to be quiet? Shit, I’m so tired of your fucking motor-mouth, thought about punching your teeth out for six years.”

_Six years? Who the fuck is this?_

“Now you’re going to stay the fuck still or I’ll start shooting limbs off.”

Danny tried to wrack his brain to place the voice from above, alongside the date of ‘six years ago’. He came up empty, but his attention was quickly drawn away when he felt one of his arms pinned down by a knee, and the other wrenched down form where it had been curled up next to the pillow. The arm was twisted uncomfortably – with Danny on his front, his palm now faced upwards. There was a slight movement from above, then the sound of a cap being pulled off something. When Danny saw the syringe out of the corner of his eye, he freaked out, starting to writhe like a game of Buckaroo.

It was too late though – the guy on top of him was clearly heavier and thicker set than Danny and by now had him pinned down thoroughly.

The stranger didn’t stop for more than a second to confirm his target vein and Danny was forced to watch helplessly as the needle pierced the skin and the plunger descended. It stung and the foreign feeling of toxins pumping through him made him nauseous even before the drug took effect. Whatever was in the syringe, it was clear and Danny could only hope it wasn’t heroine; he’d been stuck once after chasing a suspect into a drug house, and the withdrawal from even one dose still occasionally gave him nightmares. Not even Ewan McGregor could convince him to watch Trainspotting.

The needle was withdrawn and casually tossed aside. Without warning, Danny was flipped on his back; he tried to take the opportunity to make one last bid for freedom, but his limbs were all twisted and trapped under his body, his sheets, the attacker’s legs. Finally, Danny got a good look at the intruder.

The guy looked around Danny’s age, maybe a bit older. He had a black balaclava rolled back away from his face, and a few thick, ginger curls fought against the woollen restraint. He had a square jaw that reminded Danny of the scumbag Nick Taylor but was clean-shaven. Dark eyes glared down at Danny with a murderous passion.

“Remember me now, short-stack?” He grunted.

Danny didn’t. He honest to god did not recognise whoever the fuck this guy was and he would have even said so despite the threat of a diminished number of limbs, if whatever the syringe had administered, hadn’t started to take effect.

His heartbeat felt loud all of a sudden, and his eyes drifted, away from the attacker, away from anything important as his brain struggled to stay on track. Against his orders, he felt his muscles relax and fall limp to his mattress. Danny tried to shake his head to gain some clarity, but even that was now beyond his abilities. The world had descended into a grey cotton haze, and he let himself drift.

Danny felt himself pulled up.

 _Up, up and away_ , Danny muttered to himself.

 

*

 

Kono pulled up smartly outside of Danny’s house. Her shirt and shorts clung to her bikini from where she’d already taken a brief swim to freshen up before heading over and the air was light and clear from the thunderstorm in the night. Now, the Hawai’ian sun blazed down happily, reflecting blinding white off puddles and the wet shingles on Danny’s home.

She parked her Vespa hybrid scooter next to the Camaro – after reconnecting with Ben, Kono had learnt a lot about living a more eco-friendly life. It wasn’t practical for speeding to crime scenes, but when she was just out for leisure, her little eco-friendly scooter got her where she needed to go. And unlike her _lolo_ cousin, she actually wore a helmet.

Said helmet took a second to take off, her damp hair tangling in the strap-buckle. It was only then that she noticed the other car – a dinged up Nissan truck with a faded flame decal on the side and a ‘BABY ON BOARD’ sign flapping off the bed door. For a second Kono wondered if she should go since Danny had company, but figured that if their surfing date was cancelled, he’d have called her, so he was probably still expecting her. Danny was particular about things like that.

She made her way to the front door, a thermos filled with her Auntie’s gourmet coffee that she couldn’t stand but Danny salivated over, slung over her shoulder. She went to rap her hand on the door.

The door swung open.

Kono was instantly on high alert – Danny was particular about many things: the thickness of a crust of pizza, telling others if he was going to be late, and home security. His door was always locked and double-checked, and there was no second key hidden under a flower-pot nearby. The only ones with a spare key to his house were Rachel, Steve, Chin and Kono herself –and all of them knew to shut the door behind them.

Silently, she placed the thermos on the lanai and pulled her S&W Ladysmith from her ankle-holster, holding it at neutral as she shouldered the door open. Creeping into the hallway, she kept to the walls. Even from there, she could hear grunts and heavy breathing and a dragging sound from the living room.

She was about to round the corner, when her perp almost ran into her – a tall man, about Chin’s height, with a masked face had Danny, clad in his clothes from yesterday, even his loafers, propped up, one arm around his waist and with the other man leaning against his shoulder. Danny looked out of it, his eyes snapping from one area of the room to another blankly.

Kono’s stomach sank as she trained her pistol on the two men.

“Freeze! Five-0!” She barely had time to shout before the perp had released Danny’s waist and grabbed his Glock, firing two, three rapid rounds at Kono. Reacting on instinct, she dove and rolled behind a sturdy cabinet in the hallway, her heart beating a million miles an hour at the sudden adrenaline burst. Ever the quick tactician she realised she couldn’t hold out against a select-fire model with her semi-automatic. Thankfully, being always on call meant she had her phone attached to her other ankle at all times.

Now, as wooden splinters exploded around her head, she fumbled with the case and yanked out the phone. She took advantage of the brief pause in fire to duck around the cabinet and line up her target – for what she lacked in firepower she made up for with accuracy. She let off three shots, before retreating just as the loud RAT-A-TAT-A-TAT started up again.

Chin was speed-dial number 1, but her shaking hand slipped and pressed 2 – good enough, because that was Steve. The phone rang, again and again and Kono prayed for _someone_ to answer it, and that Kamekona wasn’t sitting on it again. One never knew with Five-0.

Finally the call connected with an innocuous ‘click’.

The gunfire was so loud Kono could barely hear Steve on the other end.

“Steve McGarrett.” Kono held back a comment at how he really didn’t have to announce himself on his own mobile phone like some old age pensioner. Instead, she focussed on the immediate danger she was in.

“Steve, we nee-“

Hot fire flared up like a bomb to her head and she dropped like a stone, the mobile phone clattering on the hardwood floor.

“ _Hello? Kono? Kono!”_

*

 

At the office, Chin was bent over the comp table, looking at aerial maps of the warehouses near Makai Pier, trying to trace the likely path a drug dealer had taken to escape off the cruise-ship _Lono’s Tear_ and evade HPD custody. Steve meanwhile was trying not to look over the other man’s shoulder. Sure, Chin had a reputation for unbreakable zen, but even he lost that _aloha_ spirit if scrutinised by Eagle Eyes McGarrett too closely.

Currently, Steve was staring holes into the bland mugshot of the suspect, as though the image itself would reveal the man’s location. He had just switched to Aneurysm Face when his phone rang and he picked it up with a small sigh of discontent.

“Steve McGarrett.” He answered, just before he registered the familiar deadly staccato of rapid fire bullets in the background. Before he could say anything else, Kono’s voice came through the phone, breathless and tight.

“ _Steve, we nee_ -“ Her voice was cut off with a small grunt and was instead replaced with a loud clattering noise. The bullets continued for a moment before a deathly silence fell. On his neck, Steve’s hair stood to attention.

“Hello? Kono? Kono!” At his shouting, trying to get Kono’s attention, Chin’s face flashed up, a worried furrow in his brow.

“Chin, ping Kono’s phone, now.” He said, but Chin’s hands were already flying across the table.

“Got it. She’s at…Danny’s house?”

On the other end of the line there was a shuffling, dragging noise, some malicious muttering and then the sound of something, a window or door, banging open, before there was silence again.

“Right. Get HPD to send a squad to Danny’s house, and EMTs.” He threw over his shoulder, already half-way out of the door. Kono was Chin’s cousin, not his, but Chin trusted Steve, and he’d be hot on his heels after calling for the dispatches.

Steve’s brain was whirring, pacing at 100 knots through all the lethal situations Kono and maybe Danny had got themselves into. He was twenty minutes out, ten if he broke all traffic laws. He clambered into his truck and slapped the sirens on as he pulled out.

 

*

 

Steve made it to Danny’s house in 9 minutes and 20 seconds, leaving a sudden traffic muddle and a multitude of scared old ladies in his wake. He also owed someone a new post-box that he’d clipped off its pole with his wing mirror, but he’d focus on that later. He was strung tighter than a bow as he pulled up, out of the door almost before the truck had fully stopped. Steve was completely stocked up with his arsenal, most of which he usually kept underneath the passenger seat and that he’d awkwardly assembled on the way, only keeping half an eye on the road. Danny would be having a stroke if he’d been in the car for that ride.

Talking of Danny, Steve approached his house quickly but carefully, all senses on high alert. He didn’t miss Kono’s teal scooter parked beside the Camaro, or the drag marks in the damp earth ending in tyre-tracks that indicated a vehicle had recently left. As he got to the house, the front door was wide open, one of the glass panes cracked like a spider-web. A lone delivered bill flopped its way out of the letterbox in the breeze like a stranded fish.

Steve entered, and didn’t have to go more than two steps before he came face to face with the carnage.

For a heart-stopping moment, he thought he’d walked onto a murder-scene; bullet-holes dotted the walls and furniture like modern art, vases and bowls laying smashed on the floor and the central focus of the grim tableau, Kono lay next to a tattered cabinet, sprawled awkwardly on her side on the carpet, her shirt and dark hair soaked with blood.

Steve was quick to rouse himself, and after only briefly clearing the rest of the hallway, he raced to Kono’s side, sliding his fingers to her neck. A beat, then sharp relief as he felt her pulse, shallow and fluttering, but _there_. Steve couldn’t do much but wait for the EMTs – Kono didn’t look like she’d been hit anywhere else, but the amount of blood coming from her head disturbed Steve deeply.

Ever so gently he brushed her hair aside and tried to get a good look at her head-wound through the black and crimson mess.

There.

The wound looked like a deep bullet-graze, which simultaneously filled Steve with hope and despair. In his time of service, he’d seen men walk away from a bullet to the head with only mild concussive symptoms while others didn’t walk away at all.

“Kono. Kono, can you hear me?” He spoke to her in the vain hope that she might open her eyes. Kono’s lids didn’t so much as flutter.

Steve felt sick seeing her like this, pale and still, like she’s look after her disastrous trip sailing around the islands in her catamaran. It had taken days for her to recover from the sun-burns and dehydration, and when Steve had seen her in the hospital the first time she had seemed just as unnaturally still as now. Kono was simply a being of motion, full of passion and fire, and Steve often thought of her as a kindred spirit – they played into their partners’ dynamics similarly. Kono and Steve both leaped before they looked and enjoyed every minute of it.

Steve wasn’t enjoying himself now.

“It’ll be okay, Kono. Chin’s on his way, just hang on.” He felt helpless as he watched his sister bleed – he wanted to press on the wound, but with something as delicate as a bullet to the head, he didn’t want to disturb the wound lest he knock something out of place he shouldn’t.

Thankfully, it only took a few minutes for Steve to hear the sirens of an ambulance get rapidly closer, and even louder, the raspy growl of Chin’s Lito SORA as it pulled up front. Ten seconds of the clock ticking went by before Chin burst in through the open door, gun in hand only perfunctorily, trusting Steve to have resolved the situation and helped out Kono by the time he got there.

He spotted them immediately, and knelt down beside them, mouth twisted far down as he looked at Kono.

“Cuz…” He didn’t get to say anything else when the paramedics bustled in, shouldering Chin and Steve aside to get to Kono. Orders were shouted left and right as the bustle started up – now Steve could also hear the HPD cruisers get to the house, too little too late as usual. Suddenly, the EMTs increased their intensity.

“She’s stopped breathing. Commencing CPR-“ Steve’s heartbeat thundered in his head as he watched two EMTs crouch over Kono, one starting up chest compressions while another put a manual respirator over her mouth, waiting for the signal. A sickening CRACK issued from Kono’s ribcage and Chin paled.

“Good, she’s breathing. Get her strapped up, she’ll go to Queens.” The paramedic directed the last at Steve, who was simply relieved that Kono had started breathing again.

In record time it seemed, Kono was lifted onto  a stretcher and wheeled out to the waiting ambulance. As soon as she was out of his sight, Steve was torn. Chin read it in his face and gave a brief squeeze to his arm.

“I’ll go with her, Steve. I’m family, they’ll tell me more.” He said. Steve was relieved – he wanted to stay with Kono, but he also needed to find out what the hell happened.

“Keep me updated.”

“Will do. Oh, I’ve called CSI too. Eric’s on his way.” Chin nodded as he left with the ambulance.

 

*

 

Chin rushed to the ambulance before it left, keeping his eyes trained on his cousin, face still covered in spattered blood, eyes closed. He clambered into the vehicle after the paramedics, and before they could tell him to get out, he flashed the badge.

“Five-0. I’m her cousin.” A paramedic with a lazy eye nodded at him and went back to hooking Kono up to various tubes and instruments to keep her stable during the ride. On the narrow bench, Chin was close enough to Kono to pick up her limp hand and lace their fingers together.

As he thought of how close he came to losing her, how he still might, he couldn’t hold back the torrent of memories from the two of them that crashed over him – like the first time Kono had mastered a wave that he’d flunked. She’d been barely eleven to his nineteen, and she’s flown over the wave with such grace it looked like Namaka herself was carrying her board. He’d wiped out and as they came to shore she’d laughed at him for it, her round cheeks flushed with adrenaline. He’d only laughed, so very proud of his little cuz and scooped her up, slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and tickled the soles of her feet until she’d cried uncle.

Or that time when she’d first seen him in his HPD uniform, and he eyes had become so wide and admiring, he’d blushed under her awe. Then paled when she asked if she could fire his gun.

Or…or the time following her retirement from surfing. She’d just found out from the doctors that her knee wouldn’t take her professional surfing strain anymore, and that it might never heal enough for leisure surfing. She’d put on a brave face, laughing and saying that now she’d just have to get  a proper job like the rest of the family. But he’d seen her later that day, sitting on the beach at midnight, empty liquor bottles in the sand at her feet as she looked out to sea, silent tears running down her face. He’d tried to comfort her but she lashed out, angry and sad and terrified for her future. He’d let her hit him and then embraced her, let her angry screams and beating fists quieten into heart-wrenching sobs as she cried for losing the art of the sea she’d loved. He’d sat on the beach with her and then carried her to her house where her mother had been waiting anxiously. He’d bunked down on the floor next to her bed and nursed her through the hangover the next day. Then he’d been there, for every PT session, for every up and every down, for every day that Ian couldn’t make it. He’d pried whiskey bottles from her hands, stayed out paddling boards out in Waikiki bay for hours while the sun rose.

He loved Kono like a sister, like part of his own heart, and he wasn’t sure what he’d do if he lost her.

 

*

Steve turned to the wrecked hallway as uniforms replaced medical scrubs.

 _Eric’s on his way. Eric- Danny!_ In his worry for Kono, Steve had forgotten all about him, and a sickening heavy feeling settled in his stomach as he registered his best friend missing. Quickly pushing past the HPD officers, he rushed through the rooms, wanting to find Danny and at the same time hoping he wasn’t here, because there was no way Danny wouldn’t have come to Kono’s aid unless he was-

No. Danny was fine.

Steve tried to keep re-assuring himself as he entered Danny’s bedroom. Immediately, his SEAL senses started tingling – sure, Danny could be a slob a lot of the time, but he usually at least lazily made his bed. Here, the bedsheets were disturbed, twisted and yanked this way and that.

Steve scanned the room, looking for any clues as to what had happened other than Danny leaving suddenly or in a hurry. He found one almost immediately; caught in a fold of the bed-sheet, was a syringe. He pulled a pair of latex gloves from one of his cargo pants pockets and snapped them on before picking it up. There was no liquid left in it, but when he brought it up to his nose and sniffed, he recognised the smell: gamma hydroxybutyrate, or Liquid Ecstasy, a date-rape drug. Certainly, if Danny was injected with that, it pointed towards abduction. The abductors obviously didn’t want to knock him out fully, suggesting it was only one person, or two slight people who would struggle with a truly unconscious weight. Kono had probably interrupted the kidnapping.

But that meant Danny was gone, by at least half an hour now going by the time Kono had called him. Steve wanted to punch something, but also needed to preserve the crime-scene for CSU. Placing the syringe back where he found it for photo-evidence, he backtracked through the house, dodging officers. Eventually he found himself back at the front door, keeping an eye out for Danny’s nephew – he wasn’t sure what he would say to him, but he knew it’d be rough on the guy. Steve knew that despite their bickering, Danny and Eric had a close bond.

Suddenly, something glinted in the corner of his eye. He turned towards the door jamb and where the sunlight was glinting off a single hair – it was curly and red, neither Danny’s nor Kono’s. It might be one of the paramedics’ but Steve didn’t remember them bumping into the door-frame. A spark of hope lit in his stomach as he deliberately lifted the hair, just as Eric approached the house, trepidation painted on his face.

“Eric, take this and store it, send it off the lab immediately.” Steve ordered before Eric could get a word in edgeways. Not even a ‘Hi, E-Train’ which immediately conveyed the seriousness of the situation to Eric, who pulled a tube out and deposited the hair in it under Steve’s watchful eyes.

“Actually, why don’t you take it to the lab. You don’t want to be here.” Steve said, tone more even than before. Eric gulped, eyes flicking up to the house.

“Is Uncle D okay?” He asked eventually. Steve kept his face expressionless.

“You should go.”

With that, Steve left Casa de Williams in the hands of the HPD and CSU, trying to get Eric’s worried face out of his mind as he headed towards Queens Hospital.

 

*

 

By the time Steve gets to Queens, Kono is already sequestered in her own hospital room. Steve could see Chin sitting by her bedside through the glass window as he approached. He eyes up the thick swathe of white bandages around her temple and couldn’t help the sigh of relief that swept through him. No doubt Kono wasn’t out of troubled waters yet, but at least she was _alive_.

He was intercepted on his way to the hospital room by Grover, who came around the corner bearing two cups of hospital coffee.

“McGarrett.” He nodded, and Steve tiredly greeted him back, holding open the door for him as Grover had his hands full. Chin looked up as they both entered the room, absently taking one of the coffees, but not drinking it. Steve gestured to Kono.

“How is she?” He asked. Chin ran his hand through his thick hair.

“The doctors say she should be alright. The bullet only grazed her, didn’t penetrate the skull. They anticipate the worst symptoms will probably be headaches, dizziness and so on. But they want to do some more tests when she wakes up, for things like vision problems or epilepsy. Though they said when she wakes up, if all goes well, they can release her by this evening.”

“She got _shot_ in the _head_ and they want to let her out of the hospital _today_?” Grover asked in disbelief, and Chin looked just as unhappy. Just then, Steve’s cell rang and this time he looked at the caller ID.

“Jerry. Tell me you’ve got good news.” He’d called him up on the way to Queens, hoping that he could scrub the neighbourhood watch cameras to catch the kidnappers vehicle come or go from Danny’s house.

“Sorry Commander. I got the cameras but at around ten pm yesterday the cameras developed a fault and didn’t record anything else.”

“F- Of course they didn’t. Thanks, Jerry.” He hung up without saying goodbye, and made an aborted punching motion at the hospital bed.

“You okay?” Grover asked as he eyes Steve.

“Yeah- actually, you know? No, I’m not! Kono caught a bullet to the head and Danny’s missing, I’m not exactly about to dance the hula here.” He groused.

“About that, will someone tell me what’s going on? Chin called me from the golf course while Kono was being treated but I still haven’t heard the full story.”

Steve slumped in one of the hospital chairs, one leg twitching with left-over adrenaline.

“Okay, from what I found, Danny’s been abducted. I found a syringe that had GHB in it in his bedroom and the place had signs of a struggle. So this person, or people, try to take Danny-“

“Wait, at nine in the morning? Why not at night?” It was a good point, and one Chin quickly figured out.

“It’s the time the neighbourhood is quietest. All the people who have work to do are usually already out, and those who don’t are still asleep. There would have been less people to hear shouts for help or the sounds of a struggle.” _Or gun-shots_ , went unspoken.

“Right, so they try to grab Danny, but Kono came to the house around that time to get him to go surfing with her. I think she took Danno on as a pet-project and if their free days overlap they go surfing or swimming together in the mornings. She interrupts them, is fired upon. There were a couple of shots from her direction, but the bullet-spatter suggests automatic or selective-firing arms, she would have been outgunned. She knew that, tried to call us, but…was hit. The kidnappers probably assumed she was dead, or just wanted to get away before help arrived, so they fled, with Danny. I saw the tyre-marks, looks like a heavy-duty vehicle, wide-spaced tracks. I got there first, didn’t see Danny. Then Chin arrived, the EMTs took her to the hospital while HPD and CSU took over the crime-scene.”

“How’s the, the Russo kid taking it?” Grover asked.

“He uh, he’s a tough kid, he’ll deal with it. The only upside here is that I did find a hair, caught in the door that I think belongs to the kidnapper. Eric’s running it for a DNA match right now, so maybe we’ll get a hit off him soon.”

“Then…let’s go…”

All three men jumped at the hoarse voice from Kono’s bed. When she tried to sit up, Chin immediately pushed her back down with a frown.

“Hey, stay down, kid. You just got shot.”

“I’m fine. We need to find Danny.” She snapped, one hand drifting up to her head-wound, fingering the bandage as she winced from the no-doubt tremendous headache she was feeling. Steve watched her with narrowed eyes as Chin fussed.

“Yeah, we’re on it, finding him, but there’s no way you’re getting out of that bed.”

“I’m not staying here, _Chin_ , while one of our ohana is getting abducted!”

The cousins stared each other down while Grover raised an eyebrow at the rare tense atmosphere between the two.

“If you don’t let me-“

“You’re not going to win this one, Chin.” Steve advised him as he eyed the determination in Kono’s eyes. The feeling of similarities between them came over him again and he knew that if they tried to make her stay at the hospital she’d just somehow sneak out on her own and fall over without any of them there to help. Still, Chin stared at him in disbelief.

“Kono, you can come to HQ.” He held up a warning hand at Kono’s triumphant look.

“But you’re going to _sit down_ and _rest_ there. You’ll be there for the updates but no running around or drop-kicking suspects. Not even interrogating. Desk duty only – and only _after_ you’re looked over by a doctor. You either take the deal, or I’ll get one of the nurses to cuff you to the bed. Deal?”

Kono glared at him but winced again as her head pounded. Chin looked like he was willing her to not accept the deal, but in the end she nodded slowly, sullenly.

 

*

 

What followed was a tangled buzz of doctors and nurses, lights shone in eyes and scans and some more scans and then another nurse who manages to be both unhelpful _and_ patronising. All the while, Chin is trying to disembowel Steve with his eyes while Steve ignores him and Grover is hiding an amused smile behind his third cup of coffee.

It’s a good three hours before Kono is released, with emphasised warnings from two different doctors for her to _take it easy_ and to _take her meds **religiously**_. Steve and Chin probably took him more seriously than Kono did – she just rolled her eyes and sniped about Chin rolling her out of the hospital in a wheelchair. But by the time they get to Steve’s truck she does look pale and relieved that she can take a small nap while they drive back to HQ, Chin and Grover following in their respective vehicles.

Steve’s almost regretting his decision to let Kono into work again, albeit not _working_ per se, when they arrive at the offices. Chin is hovering around her while she schlepps her way in. Eric’s there, standing at the comp table, with an expression that was bowled over, confused, nervous and a little bit scared all at once. Chin pulled a wheelie chair from his office and dumped Kono in it at the table, passing her a bottle of lychee-flavoured water, Kono’s favourite. She smiled up at him in thanks and as he smiled back, Chin seemed to relax a bit.

Seeing his colleagues settled in, Steve turned to Eric, crossing his arms expectantly.

“What’ve you got?”

“Right, well, um, I ran the hair strand you found and I got a hit,” he swiped a few filed across the table and then up on the big screen, “it belongs to Alexander ‘Sandy’ Santana, a con-man born and raised in Utah. He had a few small-scale robberies on his rap sheet but then gradually escalated. He was implicated in a few crimes but managed to avoid jail time until about six years ago, when he and two other accomplices pulled off a con at WaterBranch Technologies. WBT was a company based in Utah that sold anti-virus software and malware removal services. Our man and his guys took 9 million dollars from the company in two weeks. He was the only one caught and jailed for the crime, the 9 million were never found. Santana was released six weeks ago.” He finished off.

Steve stared at the mugshot – the obstinate jaw-line, the narrow eyes and curly ginger hair, in the mugshot clipped short. The guy looked like he was ready to challenge the world to a fist-fight behind Arby’s.

Still, Steve was confused.

“I don’t get it. Danny rarely left New Jersey, right? This all happened in Utah, what grudge could this guy have against Danny?” The Kalakaua cousins had similar looks of puzzlement on their faces. Grover eyed Eric.

“There’s more, isn’t there?”

“…yeah. Look, I don’t want you guys to get the wrong idea here, okay? My uncle’s a great guy, he wouldn’t get involved in anything shady-“

“Eric, we know. It’s _Danny_. Just tell us the rest.” Eric still looked uncomfortable as he pulled up some more files and some police sketches.

“I pulled up the case-file for the incident. Nobody caught the guys on tape or anything, but there were a couple of eye-witnesses who described the two accomplices. Their aliases for the con were Jim and Jay McArthur. The police-sketches put together came up on facial rec as Turk and Virgil Malloy, two already established criminals. By the time the police tracked down the Malloy brothers they had gone underground and haven’t been heard from since.” Eric concluded.

Steve’s eyes were fixed on the picture brought up – the police sketch labelled ‘Jim McArthur/Turk Malloy’ and the drivers licence for Turk.

It was…it was Danny. That was Danny’s face staring out at him from under a buzzcut. Not even a look-alike could be _that_ identical. Sure, the guy had fewer laughter-lines around his eyes and his recorded height was an inch taller than Danny, but _still_. He couldn’t believe it.

“I don’t believe it.” Kono said firmly, breaking the silence. She looked around at the others, as though daring them to disagree.

“That’s _not_ Danny. No matter how similar they look. I mean he was operating out of Utah while Danny was working at NJPD and living with Rachel and Grace, right? There’s no way he could have kept up a double life without _something_ falling through.”

Steve found himself nodding as he cleared away his emotional fog and focussed on the facts.

“Kono’s right. Obviously. These are obviously two different people. But, if we thought for a moment they were the same person…then Santana could have too, right?” The case fit together as he spoke, the team listening to him closely.

“What if…the Malloy brothers take the nine mill after Santana is caught. They must assume he’s going to rat on them, the police will be after them. They can’t be sure the police can’t track the stolen cash, so they hide it and go into hiding themselves. Santana ends up serving his six years and the whole time he’s nursing a grudge against the Malloys. He gets released, and tries to find them, but they’ve fallen off the radar. They probably also gave him fake IDs or info, right? So all _he’s_ got to go off, is their faces. Whatever he does to find the two, instead of Turk Malloy, he finds-“

“Danny.”

“Right. Danny looks completely like this Malloy guy. It’s just bad timing that he happens to move to Hawaii at the same time as the Malloys disappear. It looks like he ditched town and set up a fake identity as a police officer. Santana gets released, finds Danny, goes to Hawaii to get his revenge.”

Chin frowns.

“Or he wants the location of the money. He probably thinks he’s owed it. Danny wasn’t killed at his house or even hurt, right? Santana’s probably going to try and get him to confess where the location of the 9 mill.”

“Which Danny doesn’t know.” Kono added.

 “So we got good news and bad news,” Grover said, “good news, Danny is alive until he tells Santana where to find the dough. Bad news-“

Steve stared at the case file on the screen.

“Bad news, until then, Danno’s going to be under Santana’s thumb.”


	2. Chapter 2

Danny was forcibly dragged from unconsciousness by a burning sensation on his shoulder. He hissed as his mind swam languidly out of sleep – his blurry eyes stuck for a moment as they opened. He tried to lift his head but a strong feeling of nausea made him drop his chin to his chest again, blowing out a steadying breath to try and keep his no-puke record intact. When the world around him had stopped spinning too badly, he finally looked up; everything was blurry for a moment, but after a few seconds he focussed on where he was. His observations went thusly:

Firstly, he was definitely not at home. Instead, he was in what looked to be some kind of boardroom, with grey concrete walls. A large, peeling topographical map was pinned up on one wall, surrounded by old sheets of printed paper showing graphs and heavy bodies of text. Long desks with metal chairs snaked around the room, on which sat bulky, off-cream desktop monitors like he remembered from the 80s, their black screens dead. Everything was covered in a deep layer of dust, illuminated by weak, flickering fluorescent lights.

Secondly, he was quite thoroughly attached to a chair. He was reminded of the metal chair they had in the interrogation room, although here it felt more like the handcuffs that held his hands was thread through a single metal bar in the chair-back. Still, didn’t leave him with a great chance of breaking it. His feet were similarly restrained, as he found out as his instinctive jerk away from the burning sensation was abruptly aborted.

Finally, to top it all off, his shoulder hurt.

Number three was quickly explained as a man dug the burning cigarette back into the wound, pressing down even as Danny tried to move away. The smell of tobacco forced its way into his nose.

The butt fell away and was smeared into the ground by a ratty pair of sneakers and the man moved into Danny’s area of view.

When Danny saw his face, everything came flooding back to him at once – the intruder in his house, the abduction, the fuzzy feeling, seeing…Kono? Gunfire. He jerked against his bonds again, this time angrily.

“Where’s Kono!” His anger came out more like a demand than a question. The man looked at him, unimpressed, as he pulled a wooden stool opposite him, perching on top of it. He leisurely lit another cigarette and let it dangle from his lips as he spoke.

“Where’s that brother of yours?” He asked instead.

Danny suddenly felt like he’d been doused in ice water. Was this about Matty? He thought the whole thing had been finished with Reyes’ death, but of course, this was his life. Nothing could ever be clean or easy.

“What’s this gotta do with Matty?”

The man’s face twisted in anger.

“Not _him_. Don’t take me for a fucking idiot, shorty. I’m talking about your _brother_ , shitty moustache.”

Nothing the guy was saying was making any sense, so Danny just stayed silent, glaring at him belligerently. Behind his back, he tried subtly rotating his wrists, testing how much room he had in the cuffs. If things got ugly maybe he’d have the chance to pull the Jersey Slip on them-

With no warning, the man punched him, hard. Danny’s face whipped to the side as pain blossomed in his jaw, blood from where he’d bitten his tongue spilling in his mouth. He probed his teeth with his tongue for a second before spitting the pooling blood out on the ground. His head was pounding again.

“Urgh…at least tell me the safeword here, babe.” He quipped, running on automatic. The man flexed his fingers and narrowed his eyes at Danny for a moment before getting up and leaving. Danny twisted in the chair as far as he could to try and watch him leave.

“Oi! Get back here! Where the hell-“

The man was already back and Danny’s face paled as he saw what was in the man’s hand. The man sat back down on the stool and leaned forward. He placed the head of the nail-gun against Danny’s knee.

“Where’s the money, Malloy?” Danny’s eyes widened as he suddenly realised what had happened.

“Hey man, this is a mistake, I don’t know anything about any mo- AUGH!” He tried to double over as the gun went off – the loud THWAK followed by an unbearable pain in his knee as a long nail was punched into it. He struggled to breathe through the pain as his leg shook, blood and plasma bubbling up from the wound and soaking his chinos.

“Let’s try this again. The nine million, Turk. Where is it?”

Danny raised his head to glare at him, breathing heavy through his nose.

“My name is Detective Danny Williams, I-“ This time he couldn’t contain a scream as the gun went off again, this time into his shin. His yelling dissolved into shaky swearing as sweat started beading his brow.

“Fuck you, you fucking fuck. Jesus Christ! You son of a motherfucker-“ Danny swore. His vision was blurring again, the remaining effects of the drug doing little to dull the pain but a lot to lower his defences. The pain was burning a white hot line up his leg, feeling like a vice around his lungs.

“C’mon, you’re really going to keep this up? You’re a sonuvabitch, short-stack, but you’re a weak bitch. You’ll give in long before anyone’s gonna get close to rescuing you, so why don’t you cut the shit.”

Danny forced his head to shake. He couldn’t help but let out an internal sigh of relief when the guy put the nail-gun on the boardroom table. He watched as the man disappeared from his sight again, only to come back with two large buckets of water.

“Wha-“ He gasped as the cold water was dumped on him, leaving him shivering and gasping. The man moved around and yanked Danny’s shoes off, then his socks and as he pushed Danny’s feet into the other bucket of water, he suddenly realised what the man was going to do. He tried again to pull his feet away, but the handcuffs around his ankles weren’t long enough for him to even kick over the bucket.

So there he sat, wet clothes clinging to his skin, blood pouring from his leg, body and hair drenched, feet in the water, and as he watched the other man bring around a car battery and some wires, Danny could only hope that Steve was putting all his Super SEAL abilities into finding him soon.

 

*

 

It was 24 hours before they found any more evidence to lead towards Santana’s location. The day, and a good portion of the night, was filled with scouring the house again, top to bottom, scouring the cameras again, and cameras who were unlikely to have caught the car even if they hadn’t developed a fault, scouring the neighbourhood for witnesses. Steve found himself hoping for one of the neighbours to be having an affair so they could dig up someone who had seen some of the attack but just wasn’t speaking to preserve their pride. Unfortunately, if anyone was hiding having seen a car arrive or leave Danny’s house, they weren’t speaking up.

Steve found himself wishing he could ask Catherine for help – she’d surely have some surveillance trick hidden up her sleeve that could at least point them in a vague direction. He hadn’t felt this frantic since Mary’s abduction at the hands of Noshimuri’s men. Talking about Noshimuri though, Adam had come into the office and wrangled his wife into taking some real sleep in a real bed for a bit. Steve had thanked him – Kono was no slouch, but she was in no way fully recovered and even desk duty had left her wrung out and flagging at the end of the day.

Steve gave in to the urge he’d felt all day and punched the lamp on his desk, sending it crashing to the floor, bent and broken. He put the palm of his hands on the desk and leaned over it, eyes boring into the shiny mahogany of the table-top. _Danny’s a tough cop_ , he tried to assure himself, _he’s probably already dealing with the situation_.

Still, Steve was a man unaccustomed to, and uncomfortable with, not being in control, not having _something_ to do. After twelve hours with no news, he’d forced himself to drive over to Rachel and Stan’s place, where he’d had a hushed conversation with her about Danny missing. He’d found out too late that Grace had been eavesdropping at the door and he’s come out of the living-room to find the teenager sitting on the hallways stairs, fist shoved in her mouth to stop the sounds of her quietly crying. Seeing Grace so upset had broken Steve’s heart – as a kid she hadn’t quite understood the danger of Danny’s job, not even when he’d been poisoned or when she’d been kidnapped by Peterson. But now she was getting older she understood that Danny was putting himself in danger every-day, and that one day he might not come back.

He’d held his arms open to her and she’d flung herself into them like she was still eight years old, hands fisted in the back of his shirt. He’s stroked her hair, promising her that he’d do all he could and then some, to get their Danno back.

 _I trust you, Uncle Steve_.

Grace’s quiet murmur echoed in his head; she was relying on him to bring her dad back, to make sure Danny was whole and hale enough to complain about Grace’s attempts to make him eat healthily and her growing obsession with social media.

But they still weren’t _getting anywhere_.

As though he could hear Steve’s thoughts, Chin opened the door to his office, a tense look on his face.

“Steve, the lab’s got a lead on the vehicle.”

 

*

 

Steve, Chin, Kono and Grover gathered in the crime lab. Eric was there – for once he’d been in the lab early, at four in the morning, dark circles under his eyes – but he wasn’t the one with the information. A native girl, Keone Brown placed a plaster-cast on the table, and brought up a computer model on the screen.

“We took some casts of the tyre tracks at the scene and made a digital model of it. From the distance, and the depth of the tread, it was a heavy vehicle. The tyres themselves are standard, could fit on a couple of dozen car types and are sold all over the island, but the estimated size and weight of the truck, suggests one of a few brands. Considering the availability of these car models on the island, it’s likely to be an early Peugeot model, a Nissan or something like a Dacia Duster-“

“It was a Nissan.” Kono suddenly said, and the team turned to her.

“You remember that?”

“Yeah, only once you mentioned it. It was a, a-“ she snapped her fingers as she tried to remember specifics, “I can’t remember the specific model but it was an old model Nissan, with a flat truck end. It had like flames along the side, and a baby sign. Uh, baby on board, y’know? It looked real cheap and dinged up.” Steve nodded.

“Okay, what was the colour?”

“Ah, I dunno. It looked like it had been repainted several times? But it must have been a dull colour, nothing that stands out. I think silver? Or a sort of pale green.”

“Right.”

Kono shrugged helplessly at the vague description.

“Sorry, Boss.”

“No, Kono, this is good. This is a definite step forward. We’ve already got an APB out on Santana and Danny, we can get a BOLO out on a Nissan with that description. You said it had a truck bed?” Kono nodded. “Right, he could have transported Danny with that.”

Kono frowned.

“I dunno. I didn’t remember seeing a tarp or anything in the back. How would he have covered him up?”

Grover shook a finger as he thought.

“Maybe the point wasn’t the truck, but the drive.” Steve looked at him quizzically. “I used to have a Nissan Navara, they’re cheap on the market, come with four-wheel drive. It’s a common, easily available bang for buck off-road vehicle.”

Something seemed to dawn in Steve’s eyes.

“That would mean…Santana’s holing up somewhere in the wilds. Even the dirt tracks can easily be covered with a city car. If he needs an ORV he’s going somewhere off the map, off the trails.” He was already halfway out of the lab and on his way back to the office. The team filed out after him, Chin giving the lab techy a small smile.

“Mahalo, Keone.”

“No need, lieutenant. Just find the Detective, please? He still owed me a take-out dinner for that partial print reconstruction in February.”

Chin chuckled as he left.

 

*

 

Danny knows he’s no spy trained for interrogation, but he’s still disgusted at himself when he finally gives in. He doesn’t know how long it’s been, only that he’s been shot in the leg twice, electrocuted, roughed up and had a cheese-grater taken to his knuckles. He’d thrown up bile and he still felt his muscles sporadically seizing up. He was in pain, and disorientated, and he was confident enough in his masculinity that he could admit he’d cried from the pain. He’d tried to tell the guy that he didn’t know anything about the nine million he insisted Danny had stashed away, but every time he said he wasn’t Turk Malloy, the man would amp up the viciousness of his attacks.

Now, Danny was screaming through a wedged-open mouth as finally, with a stabbing, painful wrench he felt through his whole head, the man pulled a molar out with his tongs. Seeing his own tooth in the clamps, through tear-blurred eyes, Danny lost it.

“Ah’w tew yoh.*” He muttered, as blood and spit pooled in his mouth, dribbling out of the corners as he spoke.

“What?” The bastard asked, casually tossing the tooth into the water-bucket still encasing his feet.

“Huck ooh.**”

Danny couldn’t purse his lips through the pain, so just let the liquids dribble out of his mouth.

Then he did something he’d found he was unfortunately very good at.

He lied.

“He mo’hey, ith ih’ Oo’hah.***”

“The money’s still in Utah?” The man asked, disbelief colouring his tone.

Danny was working off of basically nothing here. He didn’t know who this guy was, what the money was for or from, or where the fuck it was. All he knew was that Turk and Virgil had got themselves tangled up in this mess, so he wracked his brains for their info.

“Ah uwie’eh ih’ unner eh whach.****”

“What?” The guy asked. The bastard had the nerve to sound amused as Danny tried to talk through the pain and the blood without choking. Finally, Danny used his tongue to clear his mouth somewhat.

“You deaf? I buried it under the track. Salt Lake City.”

The man frowned.

“The County Raceway? You pricks.” He breathed out. He pursed his lips, staring at Danny. He seemed to make up his mind.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Danny asked.

“Okay.” The man said. “I’ll believe you. For now.” He crouched down in front of Danny, his now-stubbled jaw only an inch away from Danny’s. “But if I found out you lied to me, I’ll fuck you up so hard you’ll wish you were dead.”

Danny pasted an unimpressed look on his face.

“That would have sounded more impressive if you had a face like Bruce Willis. Or Steve. Coming from a munchkin like you? It just sounds _sad_.” He baited him.

Danny’s reward was a hefty kick to the stomach, sending the metal chair tumbling over and Danny crashing to the floor. His head bounced off the concrete with a sickening thud, shooting stars and spots into his vision again. As the man walked away, Danny broke his no-puking streak.

 

*

 

Steve and Chin were poring over a map of the Hawaiian wild-landscape – they decided to restrict the search to Oahu, in a vain hope that Santana hadn’t skipped to another island with Danny. While on a global scale Hawaii was tiny and Oahu even smaller, to a five-person police force with few to no leads it was still more ground to cover than was ideal. They were picking out likely locations for two men to hole up without being spotted by the public or authorities, which ruled our popular tourist locations or restricted areas, which were regularly patrolled. Still, Santana would most likely be heading for a permanent or semi-permanent location – he couldn’t know how long Danny would hold out in an interrogation.

Steve glanced up at movement in Kono’s office. She’d had the receiver of the phone wedged between her shoulder and face and was writing something. She finished, hung up and headed out of the office and into the central space, a shorthand notebook held in her hand.

“What you got?” Steve asked.

“Right, I thought while you guys looked for a location and Lou goes to check out the local car dealerships, I called up Newark PD to see if they had anyone call about Danny about six weeks ago. I got shuffled around a bit but eventually I got an Officer Esposito who remembered a guy calling to enquire for an Officer Malloy, but wrangled the conversation around to Danny after Esposito asked if he meant Danny after he was given a description. Esposito told him that Danny was over at HPD and he was hung up on. The Officer did report it though, as he thought the whole conversation a bit suspicious. So then I called over at Danny’s old precinct, and Officer Palakiko got a similar call, but he wasn’t pulled in easily. He got suspicious because the man was neither Rachel nor her lawyer who were the only people who called Danny there. Palakiko got hung up on when he started asking questions. He reported it too, since Santana sounded none too friendly and avoided all questions posed to him. So when Officer Mahone got a similar call a few days later, she spun out the call and they tried to run a trace on it. Santana seemed to cotton on though and cut off the call.

They did get a partial trace on the call though that went on file.”

She read off the notepad.

“Apparently the call came from somewhere from around the Koolau mountains, more towards Windward than Central.”

Chin was already zooming in on the given location, going through their previous criteria as Steve gave Kono a grateful look.

“Mahalo Kono, that’s brilliant.”

“…We need to find Danny, Boss.” She said quietly, the earlier triumph melting away. Steve’s face too, fell.

“I know. We will.”

“Here.” Chin said, blowing up two locations on the screen. “I’ve found two likely locations in the area where Santana might be holding Danny. The first is an old camper-van park. The area discourages campers there now though, due to landscape instability. There is a permanent base there, for information and emergency contact and so on, officially shut down about ten years ago. It’s only weakly restricted though, so anyone could easily break in and hole up.” Steve nodded. Chin pointed to the other picture.

“The other one is the Owl Rock Weather Station. Shut down in the eighties, the aerial views show the paths around it are mostly overgrown. It’s relatively far up on the mountain range. It has no diverted power, but some place like that probably has a generator or something. I don’t think many people local or otherwise go up there.”

Steve considered the options.

“Okay…it’s basically a fifty-fifty chance here, if he’s in either of those at all. My gut though says the weather station. Something like an old camper van site would still attract local kids, right? Plus this whole ground instability thing would draw in thrill-seekers. The weather-station seems more isolated, good for hiding someone the police would be on the lookout for. We’ll head over there. I’ll send Grover over with Duke and an HPD squad to check out the camping site just in case.”

He looked around to Kono and Chin.

“Now let’s go get Danny.”

 

*

 

Danny gave up trying to keep track of seconds and minutes, but gave an estimate of an hour before the man came back. The sideways position he’d fallen in had sent his arm to sleep and his head felt fuzzy from the knock and the blood rushing to one side. The smell of the vomit next to his head made him feel sick all over again.

This time, the man was pushing something in front of him as he entered the room again. A small wheel squeaked to a stop in front of Danny, and two large hands hauled him, and the chair up into an upright position, leaving Danny light-headed and blinking. Finally, he made himself focus on whatever new hell the man had in store for him.

He blinked again as he was faced with a wheelchair.

“Hell no-“

The man snorted.

“Tch, you didn’t think I’d actually leave you here while I go off to the mainland, did you? I want you there, just in case you really were stupid enough to lie to me.” He moved behind Danny, and he felt another cold handcuff snap around his wrist. Even that small extra sensation sent pain lancing through his shredded knuckles. The man had roughly bandaged his leg some hours ago, not wanting him to die from blood-loss, but all his other injuries were open to the air.

The other end of the handcuff was attached to the chair.

“And to stop you fucking about-“ The man muttered, as he released one of Danny’s arms from the single handcuff pair that had been holding him before. Danny took the opportunity to take a swing at the bastard but he was so weak he would have been surprised if he’d won against Grace. The man just caught his arm and held it out straight, his clamping fingers unconcerned about the raw flesh they were pressing on.

He continued on as though uninterrupted.

“-I’ll have to relax you a bit.” Danny tried to fight back again as the man pulled another syringe out of his pocket. With his teeth, he pulled the cap off the needle and tried to stick Danny with it. Danny yanked his arm around, and the guy snarled in irritation. Ruthlessly, he slammed the palm of his hand into Danny’s jaw where he’d pulled out his molar. Danny was shocked out by the pain for a moment, and stilled long enough for the man to slide the needle into his arm and depress the plunger.

Gritting his teeth, Danny cursed him out one last time.

“You’d better keep me drugged up you bastard, because as soon as I’m free? I’m gonna go full Jersey on your ass.”

The man just smirked at him as his vision grew fuzzy. In his hand, he held a pair of hair-clippers, which he switched on with a low buzz.

“Whatever you say, munchkin.”

 

*

 

Kono hung onto the Oh Shit Handle for dear life as Steve put the pedal to the metal. He had his Face of Death on, and the GPS could barely keep up with the wild, careening path the Silverado took though the faint forest tracks. In the back-seat, Chin didn’t have Kono’s luxury of a steadying grip and so tried to stop himself from flying all over the place with the power of his zen alone.

Grover hadn’t been happy at all to be going to the other location – he knew Steve thought the weather station the more likely place for Danny to be, and he too wanted to get ‘Jersey’ back. But Steve had told him that since Grover had worked with HPD before he’d click better with Duke and his men, and for this operation he wanted everything seamless. Of course he knew that all the officers of both taskforces were competent, but this was _Danny_. He had to be sure there was someone he trusted to get Danny out safe if Santana did end up being at the camping park. Grover had looked like he almost didn’t buy it, but in the end agreed, wishing them luck.

A small tree log had fallen across the path and Kono waited for Steve to go around it; instead, he put his foot down even harder and simply sped over it, the Silverado jumping and landing with a hard bounce that rattled Kono’s teeth. A brief flash of remaining dizziness washed over her and Steve must have seen her lean out of the corner of his eyes. He took one hand off the wheel, knocking her arm.

“You okay?” He yelled over the sound of the truck crashing through the undergrowth.

“EYES ON THE ROAD!” She yelled instead, and Steve swerved just in time to avoid a tree-trunk that would have crunched the front bumper. She suddenly completely understood why Danny came out of the car bright red when Steve was driving the Camaro. Steve was a whole ‘nother level of adrenaline rush.

Thankfully they made it to the station in one piece. Kono immediately noted the deep tyre-tracks in the dirt and switched to high alert, unholstering her weapon. She was out of the car as soon as it stopped, crouched against its flank and waited for Steve’s signal.

Steve cleared the area and signalled for them to move in, Chin covering their six with his shotgun. They fetched up against the wall and Steve peered into one grimy, cracked window. He held up his hand and counted down on his fingers, before horse-kicking the door in, immediately sweeping the room, Kono doing the same. The long hall with dusty framed prints of the island was empty, but lit. Chin had been right about the generator then.

They cleared room after room – the building wasn’t that big but they had to be silent and efficient with covering all areas, otherwise they’d get themselves killed and what kind of rescue operation would it be then?

Steve was clearing the back area of what seemed to be a break-room of some kind, when Kono peered into a boardroom.

Immediately she knew she’d found the place where Danny had been held.

“Guys, over here!” She called over her shoulder, not taking her eyes off the room, sweeping it with her gun. Steve and Chin moved in, doing the same. Once they established the room (and thus, the rest of the building) was clear, they holstered the weapon and turned to the central display.

A metal chair painted with white enamel, sat at the open end between the end of the boardroom table and the whiteboard. The enamel stood in stark contrast to the large, scarlet bloodstains that dripped down the seat and chair-legs. A bloody nailgun, cheese-grater and file sat on the table, and Kono had to take a few deep breaths to quash the urge to vomit as her imagination went into overdrive. Her foot kicked a pair of equally bloody pair of pliars, which rang out as they clunked against a full bucket of water. The water was pink and as she looked in, she saw a single molar float in the murky water.

Steve made a distressed sound and for a moment Kono thought he was going to collapse he looked so shocked. On the other side of the bucket, Chin held up a pair of loafers.

“Dannys?” Kono asked. She needed to ask – if there was a chance that this wasn’t Danny’s blood-

Chin nodded, his face a grimace, and Kono finally lost the fight against her stomach – she turned and threw up what little she’d eaten that day. Adam had pressed some oranges and a slice of toast on her even though she hadn’t had the stomach for eating much. She was glad of that now. The vomiting had rung the drum of her headache again, and she thought that maybe, if it hadn’t been one of her team here, she probably would have taken desk-duty.

Instead, she waved off Chin’s concerned looks, as her eyes landed on something under the table.

She crouched down and fished out a syringe, which Steve took from her with a thunderous look. He took one sniff and dropped it.

“Danny’s been doped again.”

“Santana’s moving him – how did he know we were onto him?” Chin asked.

Steve just dragged a hand down his face. Suddenly his phone rang.

“Steve McGarrett.”

“ _Steve, we just cleared the camp-site. He’s not here._ ” Steve sighed.

“Yeah, Grover. He was here.”

“ _How is he? He okay?_ ”

“Lou he’s, he’s gone. Santana got him out before he got here. This place it’s not pretty. Danny’s gonna be pretty banged up when we find him.” He said, and felt like the whole sentence was one big understatement. With a quiet curse Grover signed off and he pocketed his phone, hands on hips.

“Okay. Okay, so he’s been moved. Where?”

Kono ran her hand through her hair, avoiding looking at the discarded torture implements.

“D’you think he’s taking him off the island? If Santana knows we’re on his trail, he’ll probably ditch for the mainland, right?”

Steve hummed in thought.

“Looking at the car and this place, Santana must be low on funds. There’s no way he’s got enough money for private charter.”

“So he’ll have to take a public flight or boat.” Chin finished for him. “The BOLO is still out though. Airport and dock security will be on the lookout for him.”

“Yeah, but he’s a good planner. He pulled all of this off with us three steps behind all the way. He’ll find a way. Alright. Let’s head back to HQ and alert security to make doubly sure they’re aware of who they’re looking for. Maybe we can even track down what flight or boat he might be on. With any luck, they haven’t left the island yet.”

 

*

 

Ray Kaiwi wasn’t having a great week. Amy hadn’t called him back yet from whatever hotel she was holing up in until he apologised. Why was _he_ the one always stuck apologising? Maybe she should woman up sometimes. Yeah, her job was important, but not important enough that she should skip their anniversary dinner to rewrite her article about deep-sea fishing off Leeward Coast. Surely that could have waited a day, right?

His thoughts were interrupted as his attention was drawn to a man struggling with a wheelchair at the edge of the few people getting ready to board the _Silver Lei_. Ray wandered over, hoping to lend a hand. Being a security guard at a private dock paid well enough, especially considering it was only a ten minute drive from their – maybe now only his – flat, but it was eternally boring. All day pointing passengers towards the exit, waving off tourists and waiting for his break so he can suck a smoke – most people went from island to island by cruise-ship, but sometimes down-on-their-luck kama’aina or haoles will jump on a freighter and spend an unhappy few hours perched on boxes of fish to save on some dollars.

He approached the man – he was tall, with a bandanna tied tight over his head and a pair of shades on. He wore a truly hideous Hawaiian shirt. He was pushing and pulling the wheelchair here and there, trying to pull the small wheels out of the crack in the dock’s boards that it was stuck in.

The guy in the wheelchair was asleep. He too wore a pair of shades to protect against the Hawaiian sun, and sported a buzzcut. A nasal cannula ran to a tank attached to the top of the wheelchair, and a face-mask covered his mouth. Even in the Hawaiian heat, a blanket covered his legs and his hands were tucked under the folds.

Ray spoke to the man with a smile.

“Can I help you?” The man jumped at the question and whipped his head around suspiciously. After peering at Ray for a second, taking in his security uniform and the reassuring smile, he too smiled a bit.

“Oh, no thanks, I’m fine.” He said, in a heavy mainland accent.

“No trouble, brah. Here.” He offered, grabbing the bottom of the chair and grunting as he lifted it a bit, depositing it on the even planks leading up to the gangway. When he looked up, he thought for a moment the stranger was glaring at him with an almost panicked expression, before it changed to a grateful smile. Ray shook his head – he must have imagined it. One of the sleeping man’s hands dropped out from under the blankets. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, and Ray could see the bandages wrapped from his knuckles up his forearm. He reached to replace the arm but the other man beat him to it, smoothing the blanket over the sleeping man with a sheepish expression.

The stranger gestured at him.

“My brother. He’s got uh, muscular dystrophy. Weakens his wrists. He needs a lot of sleep.”

Ray smiled and nodded at his explanation. He had a brother himself, but he couldn’t imagine Larry caring for him if he came down with an illness like that. He probably wouldn’t even come back to Hawaii for that – the guy obviously had a whole new family in Sydney.

He tipped the cap to the two men.

“Enjoy your trip.”

The taller man thanked him and to Ray his expression looked almost triumphant as he rolled the wheelchair up and onto the freighter.

Ray shook his head to clear his thoughts. God, he really needed a smoke.

 

*

 

Three hours after they cleared the weather station, Steve got a call. He stopped his planning with Chin – the only near flights and boats were way out of what they guessed Santana’s price range was. That left private or shady travel options, neither of which were likely to call in having spotted an abducted man.

“What?” He answered the phone. He was getting sick of announcing himself in the past 48 hours.

“Commander McGarrett? This is Officer Holz. One of my CIs just paid up a tip that Palakiko said you might be interested in.”

Steve’s heart beat faster.

“Is this about Detective Williams?” He saw Chin perk up at the mention of Danny.

“It might be. The CI said he saw a man matching the perp’s photo board a freight ship headed for Kauai. He was pushing a wheelchair. The CI couldn’t see the face of the man in the ‘chair, because he had sunglasses and a face-mask on, so no confirmation on his identity.”

“Okay, mahalo Officer.” Steve ended the call, tapping the phone against his forehead. Chin was watching him silently as he posed his question.

“Why…would Santana head over to Kauai?” Steve asked, brow furrowed. “It’s not that much cheaper to go from Kauai to the mainland than from Oahu.”

Chin’s brow furrowed for a second before it cleared. His hands flashed across the tablet, unzipping and sorting files before he made a small ‘aha!’ sound.

“I thought I remembered something from the files…here – ten years ago Santana pulled a job in Oregon, with one Jacob Kahananui.”

“So?”

“There’s a private air rental company on Kauai called Kahananui Hires – and it’s owned by Jacob’s brother.”

“So Santana’s caught a freighter with little in the way of security or passport checks, to get to Kauai where he’s hoping to schmooze a free or cheap flight with the same benefit.”

“Depending on how good their friendship is, and how corrupt the brother is, it sounds like a good plan.”

“We’ll have to assume that’s what Sanatana’s planning to do. Chin, get a hold of Kahananui and let him know that no matter what Santana puts on the table for him, isn’t going to be worth the trouble I cause for him if he lets the two on a plane.”

“And you?” Chin asked redundantly.

“I’m getting a plane of my own.”

 

*

 

Kono jumped up into the passenger seat of their charter ‘copter, hijacked by way of ‘means and immunity’. Steve was flicking switches left and right as she pulled her own headset on. She could tell Steve had been reluctant to pull her for this job, but with Chin monitoring incoming activity and Grover directing on loan HPD officers to coordinate security check on planes and cruise-liners Just In Case, she was the only option left.

Gods, she missed Danny though. Her Boss was fun, but he could also be exhausting, and she didn’t know how Danny wrangled him day in and day out. _Well_ , she reflected _, he’s a lot less fun when Danny’s the one in danger. He’s got his Murder Face on_.

Whoops, looks like she really was turning into Danny if she was cataloguing Steve’s faces.

The helicopter took off and she resisted the urge to pray.

 

*

 

The heavy, rattling bump of a tyre dipping into a pothole woke Danny from his heavy stupor. He immediately became aware of the irritating tickling in his nose of a cannula (and wasn’t that worrying, that he could identify hospital equipment without even seeing it). He made to rip it out, since it wasn’t even doing anything, but came up short – his hands were cuffed. The cuffs dug into his injuries and he thought he might be in a lot of pain, but a heavy blanket of painkillers numbed all sensation in his body. Still, the restrains dug up some buried situational awareness, and he tried to remember why he was cuffed in a car that was neither his beloved Camaro nor Steve’s familiar Silverado.

He must have made some kind of sound, because he saw a movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head only to come face to face with his abductor, which brought the whole ridiculous ordeal back to him in technicolour.

“Yfmwhrweh?” He tried to speak but his mouth didn’t react – it was numb in the same way as the rest of his body was numb, and even that bit of action seemed to drain him of energy. He fought against the pull of sleep, wanting, no, needing to be awake.

The man sent him an irritated look, and Danny internally celebrated his natural gift for being annoying. _Served the fucker right._

The man didn’t say anything, though his hands tightened on the wheel. Danny tried again to speak but his words only dribbled out in quiet slurs. Through the windscreen he could see they were driving on a quiet road, with actual tarmac under their wheels. On one side, forests stretched upwards, and on the other, the slope pointed downwards, beyond the road-barrier. The breath-taking – yes, away from Steve Danny felt free to admire Hawaii in his own head – landscape was caught up in a golden halo as the sun started dipping under the horizon. It would have been a lovely sight if it weren’t for his torturer and kidnapper sitting beside him. Danny wondered how long he’d been missing for now, whether his team knew anything about what had happened to him. Quick on the heels of that thought came the worry for Kono – he couldn’t be sure that it was she, or anyone even, that he’d seen during his kidnapping, but the worry was instinctual. Was she alright? Hurt? _Dead?_ He glared at the other man at even the thought that the guy had killed his colleague.

No, Kono was a tough cookie. She wouldn’t be taken out by a schmuck like him.

 

*

 

Danny must have fallen asleep because next thing he knew the sky was dark and the other man was pulling up in front of a series of low but wide-sprawling warehouses. Behind the warehouses was a short runway and a squat building sat some distance away from the car. Danny’s kidnapper turned to look at Danny and he quickly pretended to be asleep again, evening out his breathing. He prayed the man would fall for it-

He did. With a derisive snort, the man exited the car. Danny cracked his eyelids a little to watch him go and when he thought he was far enough away, started struggling against his handcuffs. The stranger must have been in a hurry this time, because they were looser than the ones where he’d been cuffed to the chair and he thought, maybe, with a little bit of effort…

Danny took a deep breath. It was only a little bit of pain – compared to what else he’d been through, it was nothing. Trying not to think about what he was doing, he braced his thumb against the dashboard and put all his weight against it.

CRACK.

Danny pulled in a hissed breath as tears gathered in the corner of his eyes. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

 _Pull yourself together, Williams_ , he admonished himself. _You have an opportunity, now use it._

He wiggled his hand around in the cuffs, pulling the fingers into a tube-like form, making his hand as small as possible and eventually it slipped through. The metal scraped against his thumb but the relief of finally being free of them overshadowed the pain this time. With his other hand, he pulled the irritating cannula from his nose, as well as the face-mask.

As for his feet, they were just duct-taped together. Danny just stared.

“What an idiot. What you do all this and then leave me in the car with my legs taped?” He muttered to himself, using his belt buckle to tear through the tape. “Now thanks to you I can never call Steve an idiot again, not even he would stoop this far.”

The drugs the man had administered were starting to wear off and Danny could feel all his aches awakening with vengeance. He looked around to see if his kidnapper had left the key in the ignition – no luck this time, but he wouldn’t have put it past him.

The doors were obviously locked, but Danny had had enough of being helpless. Bunching his belt together, he used the middle hook to hit the window. He placed the point in the middle of the window and delivered one, two, three heavy blows to it. The window cracked and, with one more blow, it shattered.

_Take that, you prick. I hope you bought this car._

His victory was abruptly cut short when the car alarm went off. He reached out and pulled the car handle, hoping that it might open from outside – no such luck. So he’d have to heave himself out. Easy-peasy, if he weren’t cut up so much he felt like swiss cheese.

Not one for self-pity though, Danny braced himself and brought both his hand and arms out of the window and grasped at the roof. Thankfully there were rails that he could grip – moving his hands pulled at the shredded skin of his arms and he gasped as the pain resurfaced. He breathed through it without pausing in his actions, letting a few tears of pain roll down his face – there was no one there to see it anyway.

Keeping one eye out for the man, he pulled together all his willpower and heaved himself up. Using his arms for support, he managed to get one foot braced on the seat and sort of stand up, albeit hanging half out of the window. He tried to swing one of his legs out of the window and nearly collapsed from the pain in his knee.

Suddenly, above him he heard the thwip-thwip-THWIP of a helicopter, getting steadily louder.

At the same time, he saw the other man leave the mysterious building, anger in his eyes and slamming the door. One of his hands was clenched in a fist and covered in blood. He turned his head first to the sky and the helicopter that was coming into view, and then out to the car, where Danny was hanging, halfway through his escape. The second he saw what he was doing, the man started running towards the car.

Desperation gave Danny the boost he needed to get moving; with a sudden strength, he got one, then the other leg over and out of the window. He felt his knee try to buckle under him but held onto the roof-rails.

God, he was in a lot of pain. He felt like spikes were being driven into his body all over, and he just wanted to stop and rest. There was no time, though – his torturer was almost on him, and the helicopter that would take them to the mainland was descending.

He didn’t know if he could run, or even walk, but here was the moment to find out.

Danny made a mad dash towards the warehouses – maybe he could lock himself in there or something. He’d have aimed for the building the other man had come from, but he’d have to cross his abductor’s path for that and he wasn’t willing to bet he’d win that fight.

He even made it several steps before his leg gave out and he crashed to the ground – when he looked down, his trouser leg was drenched in blood again, the bandages having done nothing but slow down the process of him bleeding out.

The helicopter started to land.

Before he could pull himself up again – _hah, what a joke_ – he felt the other man bend over and haul him up, as the helicopter finally touched down. He tried to fight back but all his injuries decided to attack him at once and he gasped hard at pain pulsing through him. He felt black fuzz creep in the edges of his vision and he only counted himself lucky he didn’t pass out.

He felt himself spun around so his back was pulled up against his kidnapper’s chest and the cold press of a bullet to the side of his head, in a weak parody of their first meeting. The helicopter’s doors burst open and-

“Steve?” Danny gasped out, voice barely a whisper.

“Alexander Santana, drop your weapon!”

 

*

 

Steve piloted on instinct, mind racing ahead through all the scenarios of what he’d find when he got to Kahananui Hires. Chin had hopefully already got the owner’s co-operation, but what if he hadn’t? What if his partner was even now being flown to Fuck-knows-where, USA? Not that Steve would stop looking if that happened. He’d rescued Danny from a Colombian prison; he’d find him, in Utah or New York or goddamn Alaska. Danny wasn’t getting away from him.

Below him, the hire company came into view – the rectangle roofs of the aircraft hangars and dark take-off strip. He started his descent. Beside him, Kono suddenly leaned forward.

“Steve! The car!” She pointed and Steve craned his head around the equipment to see the car they were looking for, parked by the office building of the owner. Someone was trying to climb out of the car, it looked like. Turning his attention to the office, he saw the door burst open, and Santana appeared. The man turned to look up at him and he and Santana locked eyes. Santana suddenly set off towards the car at a run, and Kono shouted again.

“Danny! It’s Danny, Boss!” Steve was already landing, and he had to concentrate on not crashing the ‘copter, but he could feel Kono tight with tension next to him, already drawing her service weapon and unbuckling her straps. The skids had barely touched the ground Steve and Kono jumped out simultaneously, weapons out and pointing at Santana.

“Alexander Santana, drop your weapon!” He shouted.

Then, Steve got his first good look at Danny in two days.

He looked awful. The blonde hair he was so proud of had been shaved down to stubble in a paltry attempt at a disguise, and it somehow made all the other injuries stand out even more. The side of his mouth had swollen up and Steve remembered the lone tooth floating in the bucket of water at the weather station. His arms were covered in bandages, and his trouser leg was more red than blue. The way Danny was holding himself screamed of pain, and the dark circles under his eyes stood out starkly against the waxy colour of his skin.

Steve was going to kill Santana.

“Stay back! Stay back or I’ll end this fucker, don’t push me!” Santana threatened.

It looked to be a classic stand-off, and if it were a normal hostage, the encounter might have dragged on longer and ended in a dramatic climax. As it was, Danny was a trained police officer, and even in the state he was in, he knew what to do.

With what looked to Steve like tremendous effort, Danny pulled himself together and drove an elbow deep in Santana’s stomach, while simultaneously dropping. Instinctually, Steve’s finger squeezed the trigger; twin shots rang out in the air, and then again, as four shots buried themselves in Santana’s chest. The man jerked, his gun firing wildly in the air, before collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut.

The two didn’t waste any time. Steve ran to Danny and dropped to his knees, while Kono kicked Santana’s gun away and made sure he was dead as a doormat. He didn’t so much as twitch.

 

*

 

Danny wondered if he’d finally gone loopy from blood-loss. Seeing Steve and Kono come seemingly out of nowhere was too much for his slow consciousness to deal with. Thankfully, his sub-consciousness picked up the slack. He registered the set-up – armed perp holding a hostage; him. The police couldn’t shoot if the hostage would become collateral. His fight or flight instincts struck ‘flight’ off the list and finally, without his say-so, drove an elbow into his kidnapper’s stomach. At the same time, he was released and his knee couldn’t hold him up and he dropped like a stone. Lucky for him, as he felt a bullet whizz a few inches over his head, followed by four more deliberate shots that struck the other man, making him stumble back before he, too, fell. Danny watched it all happen numbly, giving his body over to the stress that had been forced on him for the last 48 hours.

It felt like only a second went by between finding himself once more on the end of the other man’s – _Santana­_ , his sub-consciousness belatedly supplied – gun, and Steve kneeling worriedly beside him, hands hovering over him, trying to help but unsure where to touch. His eyes were wide and open, like they had been when Danny had inadvertently triggered the motion sensor for that bomb. Steve had stayed then. Steve always stayed with him, found him. Steve had his back.

His face tiredly crinkled into a smile.

“Hey, babe.”

The way Steve’s face lit up with that goofy smile seemed somehow hilarious to Danny and he giggled. Okay, maybe the blood-loss really was affecting him a little.

“Hey, hey, Danno. Kono’s calling the paramedics. We’ll get you fixed up in no time, okay?”

“Kono?” Danny snapped back to himself at the mention of her and his hand clenched in Steve’s shirt-sleeve. “Kono.” He repeated, trying to convey his urgency through staring at Steve. _Tell me she’s okay, Steve_.

Then, there she was, hunkered down next to them, a white bandage stuck to her head, but beautifully _alive_.

“I’m right here, brah.” She said, gently.

 _Yeah, yeah you are_.

With a relieved smile, Danny finally surrendered to unconsciousness.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * - "I'll tell you"  
> ** - "Fuck you"  
> *** - "The money, it's in Utah"  
> **** - "I buried it under the track"


	3. Epilogue

20 hours later found Steve standing in a hospital hallway, trying to coax a cup of coffee from the machine. He was bone-deep tired, but knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight, at least not at his house. Danny had been out of surgery for four hours now, the doctors working hard to fix the mess Santana had made of Danny’s leg. Steve still shuddered as he remembered the glimpse he caught of it, skin split and ripped, of the nails buried deep in flesh and bone, almost hidden completely under the heavy flow of blood. Steve never stops wondering at the amount of damage a body can take without giving up the ghost, having seen soldier survive stepping on IEDs in ‘Stan and now Danny.

Gently, he thunked his head against the machine. Suddenly it spurted and gave a ‘glug-glug’ as it filled a coffee cup for him. He had resigned himself to sleeping the night at the hospital – the 5-0 badge could get him many places, including a hospital room after visiting hours. He’d already sent the rest of the team home to get some sleep, especially Kono, who really hadn’t been sticking to the ‘desk duty’ deal he’d made with her. Danny hadn’t even been awake for most of the waiting the team had done, only occasionally waking up vaguely, fighting against an invisible force. Steve had done his best to calm his friend down, fighting to keep him laying where he should – when he’d gone out for some food, he’d come back to find one of the nurses had cuffed Danny to the bed to stop him trying to move.

Needless to say, Danny had been half-way to a heart-attack, finding himself restrained again, and Steve had only just stopped himself from threatening the nurse, settling instead for speaking very deliberately and firmly to her and insisting she didn’t tend to Danny again.

Okay, so maybe Steve could get a bit protective.

He was already eager to get back, so he grabbed the coffee, ignoring the small amount of hot liquid that splashed over his hand, and made his way back to Danny’s room.

He’d told Rachel over the phone that she could bring the kids over to see Danny in a few days; he knew Danny wouldn’t want either of them to see him in the state he was in, bruised and six feet high on drugs.

Steve slowed as he got to Danny’s room; a dark haired guy with a small moustache was standing nearby, loitering. He was making no move towards Danny’s room and he could just be waiting for someone, but Steve kept an eye on him as he put his hand on the room handle.

He pushed open the door and immediately his Sig-Sauer was out and pointed at the intruder in the room, sitting in _his_ chair, near _his_ injured partner.

“Freeze!” He shouted, and the intruder jumped, turning around.

“WOAH, WOAH, woah there, Rambo! Put that thing away! What jungle did your mother drag _you_ up in!”

Steve lowered his gun in shock. He looked from Danny to the visitor and back to Danny.

“Uh - Turk Malloy?” He put forward. They really. Wow, they really _did_ look similar. Identical even. How the-

“That’s my name, sweetheart, don’t wear it out.”

_God, they were even equally obnoxious, what kind of hell was this?_

“I – what are you doing here?” Steve went with, for lack of any smart comeback. Turk reached out and patted Danny’s hand.

“Just come to check up on Charlie Kaufman here.”

“You realise that Charlie was more talented than Donald, right?” A voice came from the hallway. Steve turned to find the dark-haired man from before peeking into the room. He took off his sunglasses and cap and Steve immediately made the connection – Virgil Malloy.

“And on the subject of Danny being more intelligent than you, this is a stupid idea and I can’t believe we’re still here.”

“Then shove off!” Turk gestures, making shooing motions at Virgil.

“I would, but somehow, leaving Forrest Gump to outrun a Navy SEAL seems unsporting.”

“Should be right up your alley then, spineless.”

“What did you just say?”

“I called you spineless, princess. A weakling. Pussy.”

“Oi-“

“What’re you gonna do, little girl?”

Steve rubbed his temple, holstering his gun and putting his forgotten coffee down on Danny’s beside table. He then made to break the two brothers up.

“Hey! Hey, cut it out. This is a hospital room, okay, you’re going to draw attention.”

Virgil stuck his cap back on with an annoyed flourish.

“Fine. I’ll just take the car and leave you here then, you ungrateful little-“

“Oh? Virgin’s going to drive a car that isn’t a model? Probably the first time you’ve seen something bigger than three inches.”

“I’m going to smother you in your sleep!” Virgil shouted as he left, leaving Turk sniggering. Steve leaned against the bedside table, taking a tentative sip of his coffee and frowning at the weak taste. He checked to make sure Danny was still out, before turning back to Turk, who was sat back in his seat.

Steve couldn’t help but stare – they  had the same look, the same voice, even the same attitude. This was freaky even for look-alikes, unless…

“So what’s your connection to Danny?”

Turk gave him a disbelieving look.

“Really? I’m sitting right next to him and your mind doesn’t immediately jump to ‘twin brothers’? What, too full of pin ups of AK-47s? Sexy chicks dressed in nothing but tac-vests?”

Steve bristled – only his team and Mary could talk to him like that and this guy, no matter how similar he might look, wasn’t Danny.

“Danny’s only got one brother, and he’s dead.”

“Aww, yeah, I heard about that. Bummer about the kid. He could have made it big in the business.”

 _Do not strangle, do not strangle_ , Steve repeated the mantra in his head.

“Anyway, with us it was a whole mix up. Ma was in New Jersey of all places when y’know, everything went down? Who goes to _New Jersey_ for a holiday though? Who goes to New Jersey unless they’re shoved at gun-point, in fact?”

Steve heard his mouth speaking without his permission.

“New Jersey’s not so bad. It’s got good pizza, good singers-“

“You live in _Hawaii_ , sweetheart.”

“Just…get on with the story.”

“Not much happening. Ma was in the hospital, and so was Mrs Williams. Me, Virgil and Danny were born. Ma said there was some kind of fire or something and everything got messed up and the babies accidentally got swapped. Nobody even noticed because hell, babies, they all look the same. I did always joke ‘bout Virgil being adopted, y’know. When we were kids he used to cry about it.” He sniggered again.

“So you’re saying Danny is…a Malloy?” The idea was so foreign for Steve he couldn’t quite wrap his head around it. Danny was a Williams. That’s just, just _him_. He was _just_ like Clara. But then, Steve thought about the rest of the Williams family – Bridget, with her dyed blonde hair, Matt, lean and dark haired, even Eric, who Steve had always assumed, simply took after his father. Just from a looks perspective, maybe Virgil did look more like he belonged in that family…

“Hell no. Danny-boy made it clear that he didn’t want to be part of the Malloy family. We only found out ‘bout this whole _thing_ what…ten years ago? Somewhen around there. Virgil was in Newark for some computing gig when he sees this bozo’s face in the papers. ‘Course he shoved the picture in my face for at least the next six months until I agreed to go meet this Williams guy. We got on alright at first, but he caught on what the family business is-“ He mimed putting his ear against an invisible lock and stuck his tongue out like a cartoon, turning an imaginary lock, “-and suddenly he doesn’t want to hear a single word about us. If you cut the guy down the middle he’d have ‘JUSTICE’ spelled through his body. Y’know, like that stick candy?”

“Rock.” Steve corrected absently.

“Whatever. I think dickie here is a bit tetchy about the whole subject still. Doesn’t like the idea that he’s not a Williams by blood, you know. ‘Course, I don’t let Virgil the Virgin forget. I like to bring it up now and then at family gigs – keeps him on his toes.” Turk said proudly.

“Okay, I get how you two know each other then, but why are you here? He’s never mentioned you. It doesn’t sound like you keep in touch.”

Turk suddenly looked uncomfortable, plucking at his jeans.

“Well, I figured this business was at least a little bit our fault, and Danny-boy did get a bit more dinged up than usual.”

“Than usual? Are you spying on him?” Steve asked with narrowed eyes, his protective instinct flaring up.

“Down, dog!” Turk jeered. “I’m just keeping a couple of tabs on him, okay? No need to go all Spanish Inquisition on me.”

“But wh-“

Turk suddenly pulled his cap down and slid his sunglasses on as the sharp tap of heels sounded in the hallway and after a brief perfunctory knock, a nurse entered. She took in the two visitors with a disapproving face.

“Mr Williams shouldn’t be having visitors at this hour.” She said, sharply.

Steve amped up his Charming Smile and flashed his badge.

“Five-0, ma’am. I’ve got authorisation to be here, tonight.”

The nurse gave him and the silent Turk a sceptical look, before checking Danny’s stats, switching out his IV bag and scurrying back out, shutting the door firmly.

As soon as the door shut, Turk shoved himself up from the chair.

“And I think that’s my cue to leave. Fun as this little talk’s been, tea-times over.”

He headed to the door, but Steve managed to get one more question in before he left.

“Wait, Malloy. What happened to the nine million in the end?”

Turk flashed him a wide smile.

“Trade secrets, sweetheart.”

And with that, he was gone.

 

*

 

From the bed, Danny groaned.

“Urgh. I thought he’d never leave.”

Steve didn’t try to stop the small grin that slunk on his face as he dropped into Turk’s vacated seat.

“Well now you know how I feel, partner.”

Danny gave a half-assed glare.

“You are _not_ comparing me to him. I am a _joy_ to be around, babe, you’re lucky to have me.”

“…Yeah. Yeah, I really am.” Steve said softly, and Danny immediately dropped the fake scowl.

“C’mon, you can’t pull the puppy face on a sick man, McGarrett. I can’t even defend myself.”

“As if you can resist me when you’re fully mobile.”

“It’s true, I feel like over the years you’ve been wearing away my Anti-Batshit Walls. I can never go back to civilisation like this.”

“Good. Stay here then.” Steve said, very serious.

Danny grinned at him.

“Okay. You’ve got me, babe. I’m not going anywhere.”


End file.
